Time Passages (Queen or Freddie Mercury Fanfic)

7. Harley Quinn vs. Harlequin, Part One

Julia

I pounded my fist on the lab door.  "Open up, K!  It's me!"

After a few seconds, the big metal door hissed open.  But it wasn't K I saw peering back at me through the crack, but C.  He looked me over with a strange, cold interest.

"You just happened to have that outfit in your car?" he said, slyly arching his brow. 

"Believe me when I tell you I take no joy in wearing this," I told him, ambling in carefully to ensure my heeled black boots left no scuffs on the immaculate floor.  "I just want to get Danny out of there in one piece."

K was a little more encouraging. Looking up from the screen, he whistled and remarked, "Eat your heart out, Anne Hathaway."

Blushing, I shrugged it off.  I was wearing an exact replica of the skin-tight black Catwoman costume from the 1960's Batman show- the one starring the late, great Adam West.  I had the headband with the pointed cat ears, the gold pendant necklace, and even the black gloves with those sharp-looking plastic claws.  Were the circumstances not so harried, I would have felt rather proud as I did on Halloween, that I could still, even after delivering an eight and a half-pound baby, fit into a size two.

"What a coincidence," C went on as I changed my lipstick from a soft pink to a deep red.  "How lucky for you, getting to show off your curves for him again.  Just like old times, eh?"

My eyes narrowed.  "For your information, the best thing that could happen is that he doesn't see my curves- or any other part of me, for that matter."

But how well I fit or did not fit into my costume was irrelevant at present.  I fitted the mask over my eyes while they tried to decide what was the most reasonable time to send me back.  They had the ultra-precise coordinates of where he landed, but the exact hour and minute when were unclear.  It was a toss-up between 11:14 P.M. German time, or 12:14 A.M, which they decided were the outermost brackets.

"For all we know, we could send you in well before he even shows up," K admitted.  "I think we'd better err on the side of caution.  I'm thinking we ought to go with the earlier time."

Good God, I said to myself.  I'm searching for the needle in a haystack.  "There's going to be about three hundred people in there- and Ms. Henderson's was a big club.  If he might not even be there yet, and the trackers last an hour, I may not have long enough."

K plucked something from inside the main desk.  "The trackers are just for in case we lose hold of the continuum- and since Speck was deemed fully operational in yesterday's maintenance review, I don't anticipate that happening."

"Wait, what?" I frowned.  "Stuart always says there's no way to stop the continuum from moving."

"There isn't," he replied.  "But what we are able to do is harness a moment along the continuum, maintain a bridge for a little while or a long while depending on our needs."

I squinted.  "Come again?"

K thought for a moment.  Then he said, "Okay, let me put it this way.  You're from Texas, so- you've been to a rodeo before, right?"

"Not once.  I think they're cruel."  Not everybody from Texas likes barbecue, rodeo, or the Dallas Cowboys, I added silently.  I don't know why that's such a hard concept.

"Oh.  Well, uh, you know what a rodeo is, don't you?  You know, where the guy tries to ride the really unhappy bull for as long as he can without falling off?  In effect, that's what the Speck is.  Speck can hold on to a moment for a given length of time until the continuum, literally, bucks it away and goes free again."